


Legends and Horrors – or, a Little Help from Klaus’s Old Professor Constantine

by thatsrightdollface



Series: Seven Worlds (Crossovers for the Umbrella Academy Team) [6]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (for the TUA characters anyway), Alternate Universe - College/University, Crossover, Eldritch Horrors, Gen, Klaus is doing his best, LoT spoilers up to like mid-season 4, Luther is So Confused, Reginald is experimenting on humans and it's a problem, Thank You Mona, references to the TUA comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Just for the record: Luther Hargreeves had originally voted to take his roommate Ben to a medical professional when the writhing interdimensional tentacles started squirming out of his chest.  Probably good he listened to Klaus on this one.Legends of Tomorrow crossover.  This takes place sometime during LoT season four, but with artistic liberties/canon divergences and stuff.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & John Constantine, Luther Hargreeves & Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Luther Hargreeves & Nate Heywood, Luther is briefly shipped with Allison, Mona Wu & Saving the Day, and Ben is shipped with Jill, mentions of others - Relationship
Series: Seven Worlds (Crossovers for the Umbrella Academy Team) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907311
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	Legends and Horrors – or, a Little Help from Klaus’s Old Professor Constantine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jericho_Pryce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jericho_Pryce/gifts).



> Hi there!!! Thank you for reading. :) I’m sorry for any and all mistakes I might’ve made here. And also sorry, Ben..... @_@ This story started with the idea, "What if Klaus worked with John Constantine, and needed to call his help for something?!?!" and kinda spiraled from there.
> 
> Couple things:  
> 1\. The “references to the TUA comics” tag is mostly in regard to Reginald’s code name, the Monocle. So yeah, the Monocle is Reginald.  
> 2\. When I told Jericho_Pryce I was planning to gift this series’s LoT/TUA crossover to him, he was glad to hear Nate was in it, but asked whether our dear Raymond of the Palms would be making an appearance. The story was already drafted by that point, and I wasn’t sure where to stick Ray in... so please see the second author’s note for a short scene with him lol. Hi, Jericho!!!! <3

Just for the record: Luther Hargreeves had originally voted to take his roommate Ben to a medical professional when the writhing interdimensional tentacles started squirming out of his chest, and slithering/ripping/unraveling voices declared, _“You’ve resisted us long enough! Why? Why, young human thing?”_ in a language that was only meant to exist in a place beyond all stars. That’s how completely unprepared for a situation like this he’d been. Uncanny eldritch mouths with a hundred thousand teeth drawing in bits of your apartment like a ravenous black hole? Monsters uncoiling, squelching from inside your friend’s ribcage? 

Shit. 

Uh.

Call... 911...?

No, it was probably good Luther’d listened to Klaus on this one. _Klaus_ was the one who’d tagged along with the disreputable sorcerer John Constantine for a while, when he was being stalked by the dead back in high school. Klaus was the one who knew just enough of Constantine’s drunken-swaggering, probably-gargling-demon-spit-or-something-awful magic to keep the Horrors that were trying to climb through Ben’s chest contained in the apartment for a little while at least. To keep them from consuming Ben completely, or whatever unspeakable thing they were here to do.

“Hospital...? No, no — _get Constantine!_ ” Klaus had called over his shoulder at Luther and Vanya, all the while taking what Luther would soon learn was one of Constantine’s quintessential _“Okay, ya weirdos, let’s dance”_ poses, trying to gather up the right words for a better, stronger binding spell. They’d known each other for years, and honestly this wasn’t the first time Luther had seen Klaus use protective magic, but it _was_ the first time he’d seen him mimic his old teacher so completely. There was inky blood seeping into the couch, slithering into arcane symbols across the walls around them. The TV was still playing the movie they’d all been hate-watching just moments before. That meant Vanya, Ben, Klaus and Luther himself, by the way – it had been a drinking game. Ben and Klaus could both quote this movie backwards and forwards, snickering and swatting each other’s arms, all that. Luther and Vanya had mostly been giving each other dubious looks, truth be told, like, _“What exactly is it here we’re not getting?”_

And then, Luther and Vanya were stumbling out into the street, drunk and panicking, listening to the windows crack apart behind them. Wincing against the roar of something splintering in from so far beyond reality. It wasn’t like either of them had John Constantine’s number saved in their phones or anything... wasn’t like demonologists were easy to look up in the Yellow Pages; wasn’t like Constantine had a handy shop across the street, selling exorcisms two-for-one on Fridays... so, hands shaking, muttering, “Oh God, Ben, oh God,” Vanya Googled the guy. Her screen kept going wonky – completely unreadable in places – and the browser wouldn’t stop closing itself… Google, apparently, wasn’t Constantine’s biggest fan… but Vanya was first-chair-concert-violinist persistent. They got multiple disconnected numbers and addresses all over the world that were probably fake – but also maybe not? – before she found a number for someplace called the “Time Bureau.” It didn’t sound real, but what choice did they have?

Vanya groaned. “Klaus ever mention a ‘Time Bureau?’”

“Uh… not to me.”

“Okay. I guess we’re calling them.”

“Right.”

Vanya put the Time Bureau on speakerphone, standing there in the doorway of that ruined apartment. It was surreal, listening to cheerful hold music in a situation like this. Pleasantly mellow string instruments soared, as the Horrors thrashed and Klaus scraped all his magical knowledge into his hands, holding Ben tight to their world. Telling him “I’m here, stay with me,” in between ragged spells. Luther could barely hear Klaus’s voice through the door —

It was too much to process —

 _It was taking the Time Bureau way, way too long to pick up their goddamn phone._ When a cheerful receptionist eventually answered, he said _very useful stuff_ like, “Hold on, agent. Are you having some trouble with your time courier?” that Luther and Vanya absolutely didn’t understand. He seemed more disturbed when Vanya pointed out that she didn’t have a time courier, no, but she’d _really like to talk to John Constantine_ , if possible, please, than he did when Luther tried disjointedly, helplessly explaining the thing that had just happened with all the cosmic tentacles. “How’d you get this number?” the receptionist kept asking. “Really, you shouldn’t have been able to –? I mean – I have to report this to Gary, I guess, or maybe even Director Sharpe –”

But then — _thank you, thank you, thank you_ — someone delicately lifted the phone out of that receptionist’s hand. She introduced herself first as “Mona Wu, the magical-creature-liaison-slash-sandwich-delivery-person who heard you screaming: what’s wrong?” and finally listened. Mona said she’d send the Legends of Tomorrow to help, don’t even worry. Constantine probably just did something super inconsiderate-sorcerer-y, like set it up so the Bureau’s inside phone number revealed itself to anyone who really needed to get ahold of him. Because he’d been hanging out with the Legends lately, and everything, right? He probably just thought the Bureau had enough time on its hands to take his messages. Easy-peasy. Mystery solved.

So hold tight, okay?

Who knew what would’ve happened without Mona Wu? Luther didn’t want to think about it.

And soon enough — true to Mona’s word — the Legends of Tomorrow arrived. Or, a couple of ‘em, anyway. Of course, Luther and Vanya hadn’t actually heard of the “Legends of Tomorrow,” not until they were climbing out of a sliding-glass-door-style hole in the universe: the work of a “time courier,” apparently. By this point in the timeline, it would’ve been way weirder for anyone to have actually heard of the Legends. They were busy gathering up mysteriously-appearing magical creatures this year, and they’d recently had to confront a vicious Fairy Godmother; they were a team originally assembled out of supposedly washed-up superpeople some guy that used to fight temporal anomalies had decided wouldn’t be missed if they randomly disappeared and started galivanting around on a sentient time-ship. 

For now, one of the Legends — a roguish blonde lady in white leather — introduced herself as Captain Sara Lance. She shook Vanya’s hand, glancing up and down the alley, and asked where all the tentacles were. Luther stumbled over to prop his apartment door open. Being helpful, in the only way he could think of. 

The door wouldn’t budge, though. Luther was usually pretty strong, and he had the boxing trophies lined up on a shelf inside to prove it. Not strong enough. Another of the Legends said, “No worries, I’ll just give you a hand, there,” and even _he_ had to shift into _literal steel_ to successfully open the damn thing without snapping his fingers off. 

“Constantine? Buddy? Is this ‘door-won’t-open’ thing normal for Cthulhu-style possessions?” Steel, or Dr. Nate Heywood, asked, shaking out his hands. But Luther didn’t hear Constantine’s answer. His eyes were drifting from the gore-smeary TV over to Klaus, with a meaty tentacle clenched around both his shaking wrists, digging his feet stubbornly, desperately into the carpet. Whispering Constantine’s spells, now, even as it was pretty obvious he wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer. To Ben, who’d gone _so still_ , like a puppet for something both new and older than the universe.

Luther gagged, seeing Ben like this. Ben, who’d been excited to join a sci-fi book club with him, and helped scheme up double-dates for their girlfriends... Allison and Jill... with so much obvious joy. Luther tasted bile, and then tried his best to keep from puking in his own doorway, or, worse, across an actual time-traveling superhero’s shoes. Didn’t work. Steel crouched over to awkwardly pat Luther’s shoulder as he knelt in the street, murmuring, “Hey, hey,” and saying yeah this was bad, but it’d be alright. 

Steel wasn’t exactly wrong. Let’s give him that. This _particular_ night would end with Ben awake and smiling nervously, wrapped in a blanket on the Legends’ time-ship as they finished up the movie they’d been watching when life unraveled. He would mutter one of the familiar lines to Klaus, and Klaus would squeeze his shoulder, and they’d both try to ignore the oozing, wriggling suction wounds up Klaus’s arms. But that didn’t mean everything was “alright,” exactly. Just “alright” by Legends of Tomorrow standards, and those guys fought history-villains, and time-travel-villains, and... at one point... had supposedly used these ancient totems to transform into an enormous stuffed toy to defeat a demon. It was a long story, Steel said. He’d tell Luther about it sometime.

There was still something waiting under Ben’s ribs, though, wasn’t there? Something contained, but that would leave Ben lying awake for nights and nights and nights. And that “something” turned out to be tied to those unleashed magical creatures the Legends of Tomorrow were chasing down all across the world, actually... to a being called the Monocle, who got a kick out of experimenting on humans, or “bringing out their latent arcane gifts.” Nobody knew why, yet, but it had happened to forty-two other people, at least. Not everybody turned out to be a potential gateway for ancient Horrors, but Captain Lance promised she’d seen “even messier arcane gifts,” whatever that could mean. Mona Wu was currently bringing some of the Monocle’s victims sandwiches regularly, under emergency care over at the Time Bureau headquarters. 

But before any of that... before anything was okay even by those dubious Legends of Tomorrow standards... John Constantine finally stumbled forward. His hands were shoved deep in his dirty pockets, and his hair had brimstone in it just like in Klaus’s stories. 

“Step aside, mate,” Constantine glowered, shouldering past Steel, biting the cork off a squirming vial pulled out of his coat. He downed that vial in one horrible gulp, shuddered, went smoky and strange around the edges. See? Told you he did things like gargling demon spit. Luther wouldn’t have wanted to know what was in that vial, but whatever it was it tasted like hell, and brought a little bit of “hell” screaming into Constantine’s bones, too. “I’ll take it from here.“

And then Constantine wrestled the clutching tentacles out from Klaus’s skin – he gathered the crooked Horrors back into Ben’s chest, where they would wait. Where they would whisper. He tried to drive them farther away, back wherever they’d come from, but — as he’d explain it — they were worked in deep, like roots. They’d have to be reasoned with, maybe; they’d have to become allies, or else wither away with some kind of cosmic weed killer, some spell Constantine hadn’t learned yet. The abyss was always full of new spells, new lows, new Horrors. New assholes who called themselves names like “the Monocle,” apparently.

Constantine clapped Klaus on the back, when the room was finally still, and told him, “Good lad,” gruff and distant but almost fatherly after all this time. He and Captain Lance would get Ben back to the ship just fine, Constantine promised. They’d run some tests, see what they could see. Everyone would have to fill out Time Bureau paperwork, likely as not, too — those insufferable paper-pushers, eh? Vanya made her way forward before Luther could think to, offering Klaus an arm to lean on as they followed Steel back through a hole in the world. To a time-ship. Out of whatever their lives had been, and into a much weirder tomorrow. 

Luther shot Vanya an uncertain look — not altogether unlike the kind they’d been passing back and forth during the movie, just with a whole new layer of existential dread slapped on like a bonus — before the temporal gateway fizzled shut behind them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ray Palmer was up late updating his Atom suit when he noticed the new guy — a college kid who seemed well-read and reliable... Ben something — shuffling past his lab, through the Waverider's flickering sci-fi, the-future-is-here time-ship halls. Aw. Ben had been through some real nonsense lately, hadn’t he? That magical jerk the Monocle exclusively messed with people all born on the same day, the first of October. Just awful luck on Ben’s part, wasn’t it? Wrong place, wrong time, inexplicably wrong birthday. And now, nothing could ever be exactly the same for him again. 
> 
> No wonder Ben couldn’t sleep. Ray could only imagine what it felt like, knowing that just a few slurred binding spells from John Constantine were keeping a gateway to cosmic Horrors sealed inside your chest. He hummed a little to himself. Glanced past Ben, down the hall. Ran a hand through his ruffled-up hair. Ray wondered if he should chase Ben down, with offers to make tea or play a board game or talk things through or something. Was he supposed to help, in a situation like this? Or would being overly chipper only make things worse?
> 
> Ray thought he knew what Ben was doing. Some of the other Legends of Tomorrow had described it to him, over the last few days, and he knew Captain Sara Lance had been discussing it with her girlfriend, Director Ava Sharpe from the Time Bureau, trying to figure out how to help. Ben would spend the rest of the night typing messages to his girlfriend back home, Jill, that he would then delete. He’d stare down at his familiar hands, running over all his recent encounters, hunting the corners of his memory for any clues about finding the Monocle. Anything strange that he’d seen, since first running into the creature. Any places where the edges of the world had grown thin around him, and wrongness started to drip in from the other side. 
> 
> If Ray had known Ben better, he would have offered to help draft a really good message to Jill, to finally pull off the metaphorical Band-Aid. He knew Ben’s friends, Klaus, Luther and Vanya, were trying their best. They still hadn’t been able to heal the dripping suction wounds up Klaus’s arms, not even with all the Waverider's tech. This was... complicated... for everyone involved. Ray couldn’t completely imagine the sort of messages Ben needed to send Jill. He could empathize, though... and he knew what he’d want in Ben’s situation. Ray was the Atom, and the founder of Palmer Technologies. He’d want some equipment, wouldn’t he? Protection. Armor.  
> Ray gritted his teeth, rubbing his palms together. He probably wasn’t going to get a ton of sleep tonight either, was he? This would throw his carefully-maintained sleep cycle all out of wack, but it was also what having a team like the Legends was for. Ray was happy to help, in the ways he understood. He... built stuff. Coded things. Wrote elaborate rule books. Planned game nights. 
> 
> Ray presented Ben with the electronic breastplate he’d put together the next night. It was a lightweight thing, but surprisingly durable, and programmed to alert both the Legends and, hopefully, John Constantine (assuming the demonologist didn’t lose that little beeper Ray’d told him to keep in his trench coat pocket, anyway) if its surface got breached by anything. Specifically, if it’s surface got breached by writhing cosmic tentacles slithering in from beyond reality, but Ray didn’t say that. He just explained the tech, and shoved the breastplate into Ben’s hands. 
> 
> “So if it happens while I’m asleep... Constantine will know,” Ben said slowly. “No one’ll have to call him. He’ll come fix it, quickly.” 
> 
> Ray smiled. “That’s the idea,” he offered. And then, “I hope you can get some sleep, okay?”
> 
> “Okay. Thank you — thank you so much, Mr. Palmer. Ray.”
> 
> “Awww. No problem at all.”
> 
> Ray headed to his own quarters, then, clicking lights off behind him. Putting a milk carton someone’d left on the counter back in the fridge.
> 
> G’night, everybody.


End file.
